Haugen’s Tech Tips Blog

Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic

• Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic – For 60 years, RFB&D, a national nonprofit, volunteer organization, has produced accessible educational materials for students with disabilities that make reading standard print difficult or impossible. Titles available in every subject area and grade level from kindergarten through graduate studies.
• Digital Talking Book Player Software Victor Reader Soft – While many people access RFB&D materials on special portable players, HumanWare provides software for Mac and PC which allow students to use their books on a computer as well.

Two of my favorite sites for families struggling with learning disabilities are closing. On September 21, Charles and Helen Schwab announced they will no longer maintain operation of their web sites, SchwabLearning.org and Sparktop.org. Instead they will focus on selective grant-making to other organizations.
I am grateful for the wonderful work that the Schwabs have done and their contributions toward greater understanding of and success for students with learning disabilities. I trust their change in focus will continue to allow them to make significant contributions in this arena.
In the meantime, let’s hope that the Schwabs can make good on their efforts to make their significant resources available through other organizations.

Now this is amazing to me: dotSUB uses a Creative Commons license and a wiki format to provide video captioning in multiple languages. Anyone can view the videos in any of the available languages. To upload, caption or translate a video, you need a registered account.
The opportunities here are endless, for people learning languages, sharing cross culturally, those struggling with literacy or those who can’t hear.
Explore the site and try it out. Then add it to your toolkit!

Karen Janowski does it again… an extensive blog post on free technology tools for universal design in the classroom. Karen is one of the most down-to-earth and get-it-done people I know and she has a great way of communicating. Bookmark her post and keep coming back for updates.
Now, what I’d really like to see is a wiki on the same topic, so we could all add in our two bits. Maybe a QIAT wiki…

Steve Jacobs has created One Stop for Free Assistive Technology, a clearing house of free assistive technology tools available for a variety of needs. It is organized alphabetically, but if you choose a few handy keywords, you can usually jump to the products that would be of interest to you.
Steve is also open to submissions of additional resources not yet on the site.